Preservation Week 2012

Contrary to popular opinion, the world will not be ending in 2012. Therefore, it still seems reasonable to celebrate for (and education about) Preservation Week. Not sure what that is? Here’s the gist:

Preservation Week was created in 2010 because some 630 million items in collecting institutions require immediate attention and care. Eighty percent of these institutions have no paid staff assigned responsibility for collections care; 22 percent have no collections care personnel at all. Some 2.6 billion items are not protected by an emergency plan. As natural disasters of recent years have taught us, these resources are in jeopardy should a disaster strike. Personal, family, and community collections are equally at risk.

Last year, I wrote an “In the news” post on preservation. (There are a couple of fun videos toward the end of that post, so it might be worth checking out if you didn’t catch it last year.) This year, my thoughts are similarly scattered—I’d like to point out a few interesting resources related, in some way, to preservation, in the hope that it might pique at least one person’s interest.

Portraits in preservation

Kevin Driedger’s excellent blog Library Preservation 2 has been running a fascinating interview series called Portraits in Preservation. To date, Peter Verheyen, Jeff Peachey, John Townsend, Michele Cloonan, Eric Alstrom, Martha Little, and Gary Frost have been featured. Moreover, in honor of Preservation Week, a student interview will be posted each day. Head over there daily for what are sure to be some interesting reads—including an interview of yours truly.

The scent of decay

In an entry called book-scent, I discussed briefly why it is that books smell. Well, AbeBooks recently put out a very accessible video on the topic that I thought I’d share as a follow up:

Preservation faux pas

I found this one last year, but I haven’t posted it yet, and it’s rather fun. What do you get when you mix a silent film with patron outreach about collections care? This!

Celebrate! Educate!

Interested in what might be going on near you (or elsewhere) during Preservation Week? Check out this Preservation Week 2012 Google Map—and encourage your own institutions to post any related events they might be holding.